Jimmy McCracklin (born August 13, 1921,
St. LouisSt. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. With an estimated population of 354,361 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of Greater St. Louis, population 2,866,517, the largest urban area in Missouri and sixteenth largest in the United States...
MissouriMissouri is a state in the Midwest region of the United States bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 18th most populous state with a 2008 estimated population of 5,911,605. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city....
) is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pianistA pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers....
, vocalist, and
songwriterA songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics, as well as the musical composition or melody to songs. One who writes only lyrics is a lyricist, while one who writes only music is a composer.-History and background of songwriters:...
. His style contains
West Coast bluesThe West Coast blues is a type of blues music characterized by jazz and jump blues influences, strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players relocated to California in the 1940s...
,
Jump bluesJump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. Jump blues was very popular in the 1940s and was called "rock and roll" in the 1950s.- Origins :...
, and
R&BRhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
. Over a career that has spanned seven decades, he says he has written almost a thousand songs and has recorded hundreds of them. McCracklin has recorded over 30
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
s, and owns four
gold recordsMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped a certain number of copies.Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories, which are named after the precious materials gold, platinum and diamond...
.
McCracklin joined the
United States NavyThe United States Navy is the sea branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. As of 31 December 2008, the U.S. Navy had about 331,682 personnel on active duty and 124,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 283 ships in active service and more than...
in 1938, later settled in
RichmondRichmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, and began playing at the local Club Savoy owned by his sister-in-law Willie Mae "Granny" Johnson.
Jimmy McCracklin (born August 13, 1921,
St. LouisSt. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. With an estimated population of 354,361 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of Greater St. Louis, population 2,866,517, the largest urban area in Missouri and sixteenth largest in the United States...
MissouriMissouri is a state in the Midwest region of the United States bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 18th most populous state with a 2008 estimated population of 5,911,605. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city....
) is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
pianistA pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers....
, vocalist, and
songwriterA songwriter is someone who writes the lyrics, as well as the musical composition or melody to songs. One who writes only lyrics is a lyricist, while one who writes only music is a composer.-History and background of songwriters:...
. His style contains
West Coast bluesThe West Coast blues is a type of blues music characterized by jazz and jump blues influences, strong piano-dominated sounds and jazzy guitar solos, which originated from Texas blues players relocated to California in the 1940s...
,
Jump bluesJump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. Jump blues was very popular in the 1940s and was called "rock and roll" in the 1950s.- Origins :...
, and
R&BRhythm and blues is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s...
. Over a career that has spanned seven decades, he says he has written almost a thousand songs and has recorded hundreds of them. McCracklin has recorded over 30
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
s, and owns four
gold recordsMusic recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped a certain number of copies.Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories, which are named after the precious materials gold, platinum and diamond...
.
Biography
McCracklin joined the
United States NavyThe United States Navy is the sea branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. As of 31 December 2008, the U.S. Navy had about 331,682 personnel on active duty and 124,000 in the Navy Reserve. It operates 283 ships in active service and more than...
in 1938, later settled in
RichmondRichmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, and began playing at the local Club Savoy owned by his sister-in-law Willie Mae "Granny" Johnson. The room-length bar served beer and wine, and Granny Johnson served home-cooked meals of greens, ribs, chicken, and other southern cuisine. A house band composed of
Bay AreaThe San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, or the Yay Area, is a metropolitan region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses large cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and...
based
musicianA musician is a person who performs or writes music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music:* An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument.* A singer uses his or her voice as an instrument....
s alternated with and frequently backed performers such as
B. B. KingRiley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter acclaimed for his expressive singing and guitar playing....
,
Charles BrownCharles Brown , born in Texas City, Texas was an American blues singer and pianist whose soft-toned, slow-paced blues-club style influenced the development of blues performance during the 1940s and 1950s...
, and
L. C. RobinsonL. C. Robinson was an American blues singer, guitarist, and fiddle player. He played a stand-mounted, solid-body, electric steel guitar, the sort often heard in Western Swing bands...
. Later in 1963 he would write and record a song "Club Savoy" on his
I Just Gotta Know album.
His recorded a debut
singleIn music, a single is a short recording of one or more separate tracks. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats.-History:...
for Globe Records, "Miss Mattie Left Me", in 1945, and recorded "Street Loafin' Woman in 1946. McCracklin recorded for a number of labels in
Los AngelesLos Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California...
and
OaklandOakland is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. state of California and a major West Coast port city, located on San Francisco Bay about eight miles east of the City of San Francisco. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay, and it is the county seat...
, prior to joining
Modern RecordsModern Records was an American record label formed in 1945 in Los Angeles by the Bihari brothers — Jules, Saul, Lester and Joe Bihari.In the early 1950s, it launched several subsidiaries — RPM Records, Flair Records and Meteor Records. It launched more subsidiaries — Crown Records and...
in 1949-1950. He formed a group called Jimmy McCracklin and his Blues Blasters in 1946, with guitarist
Lafayette ThomasLafayette Thomas was an American blues singer, and guitarist.-Career:...
who remained with group until the early 1960s.
His popularity increased after appearing on the
TVTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
popPop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs...
Dick Clark's
American BandstandAmerican Bandstand was a television show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, hosted from 1957 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
in support of his self written single "The Walk" (1957), subsequently released by
Checker RecordsChecker Records was started in 1952 as a subsidiary of Chess Records. Like Cadet Records it stopped releasing records around 1971.Its most known artists include young Aretha Franklin, Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, J. B. Lenoir, Lowell Fulson, Little Milton, Arthur Crudup, Little Walter, Sonny Boy...
in 1958. It went to #5 on the
Billboard R&BR&B/Hip-Hop Songs, formerly the Black Singles Chart, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues...
chartA record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
and #7 on the
pop chartThe Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday; while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, after more than 10 years of McCracklin selling records in the black community on a series of small labels.
Jimmy McCracklin Sings, his first
soloIn music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
, was released in 1962, in the West Coast blues style. In 1962, McCracklin recorded "Just Got to Know" for his own Art-Tone label in Oakland, after the record made No. 2 on the R&B chart. For a brief period in the early 1970s Jimmy McCracklin ran the Continental Club in San Francisco. He booked blues acts such as
T-Bone WalkerT-Bone Walker was an American blues guitarist, singer, pianist and songwriter who was one of the most important pioneers of the electric guitar. His electric guitar solos were among the first heard on modern blues recordings...
,
Irma ThomasIrma Thomas is a Grammy Award winning soul and rhythm and blues singer from New Orleans. She is known as the "Soul Queen of New Orleans."...
,
Big Joe TurnerBig Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri...
,
Big Mama ThorntonWillie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record the hit song "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song was #1 on the Billboard R&B charts for seven weeks. The B-side was "They Call Me Big Mama," and the single sold almost two million copies...
, and
Etta JamesEtta James is an American blues, soul, R&B, rock & roll, gospel and jazz singer and songwriter. James is the winner of four Grammys and seventeen Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both...
. In 1967,
Otis ReddingOtis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer. Often called the "King of Soul", he is renowned for an ability to convey strong emotion through his voice...
and
Carla ThomasCarla Thomas is often referred to as the Queen of Memphis Soul.-Childhood:Carla Thomas was born on December 21, 1942, in the Foote Homes Housing Project in Memphis, Tennessee. Her parents, the late Rufus and Lorene Thomas, brought three musically gifted children into this world: Carla, Marvell and...
had success with "Tramp", a song credited to McCracklin and
Lowell FulsonLowell Fulson was a big-voiced blues guitarist and songwriter, in the West Coast blues tradition. Fulson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He also recorded for business reasons as Lowell Fullsom and Lowell Fulsom...
.
Salt-n-PepaSalt-N-Pepa is a Grammy Award-winning American hip hop trio from Queens, New York, that came onto the music scene in 1985.The group, consisting of Cheryl James , Sandra Denton , and DJ Deidra "Dee Dee" Roper , has sold over 15 million albums and singles worldwide...
made a hip-hop hit out of the song in 1987.
Oakland BluesOakland Blues is an album arranged/directed by Jimmy McCracklin, and produced by World Pacific. Contains excellent performances cut in 1968-1969 by three legendary West Coast blues artists; L. C. Robinson, Lafayette Thomas and Dave Alexander....
(1986) is an album arranged/directed by McCracklin, and produced by World Pacific.
McCracklin continued to tour and produce new albums in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet and painter who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was, at first, an informal chronicler and then an apparently reluctant figurehead of social unrest...
has cited McCracklin as a favorite. He played at the
San Francisco Blues FestivalDebuting in 1973, the San Francisco Blues Festival is the longest running blues festival in the United States. Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the blues festival to educate the public about the history and evolution of the blues...
in 1973, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1984 and 2007. He was given a Pioneer Award by the
Rhythm and Blues FoundationThe Rhythm and Blues Foundation is an independent American nonprofit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of rhythm and blues music....
in 1990, and the Living Legend and Hall of Fame award at the Bay Area Black Music Awards, in 2007.
Selected discography
| Year |
Title |
Genre |
Label |
| 2007 |
1951-1954 |
West Coast blues |
Classics |
| 2004 |
1948-1951 |
West Coast blues |
Classics |
| 2003 |
1945-1948 |
West Coast blues |
Classics |
| 2003 |
Jumpin Bay Area 1948-1955 |
West Coast blues |
P-Vine Japan |
| 1999 |
Tell It to the Judge! |
West Coast blues |
Gunsmoke |
| 1997 |
The Walk: Jimmy McCracklin at His Best |
West Coast blues, Soul-Blues |
Razor & Tie |
| 1994 |
A Taste of the Blues |
West Coast blues |
Bullseye Blues |
| 1992 |
The Mercury Recordings |
West Coast blues, Soul-Blues |
Bear Family |
| 1991 |
Jimmy McCracklin: My Story |
West Coast blues |
Rounder |
| 1991 |
My Story |
West Coast blues |
Rounder |
| 1981 |
All His Bluesblasters |
West Coast blues |
Ace |
| 1978 |
Rockin' Man |
West Coast blues |
Stax |
| 1972 |
Yesterday Is Gone |
West Coast blues |
Stax |
| 1971 |
High on the Blues |
West Coast blues |
Stax |
| 1969 |
Stinger Man |
Soul-Blues |
Minit |
| 1968 |
Let's Get Together |
West Coast blues |
Minit |
| 1966 |
New Soul of Jimmy McCracklin |
West Coast blues |
Imperial |
| 1966 |
My Answer |
West Coast blues |
Imperial |
| 1965 |
Think |
West Coast blues |
Imperial |
| 1965 |
Every Night, Every Day |
West Coast blues |
Imperial |
| 1963 |
My Rockin' Soul |
West Coast blues |
United |
| 1963 |
I Just Gotta Know |
West Coast blues |
Imperial |
| 1962 |
Jimmy McCracklin Sings |
West Coast blues |
Chess |
Quotation
"I can watch a guy work, listen to how he pronounce his words" said McCracklin, "and I can tell just how to fit that guy with a song".
External links